Amber Dugger is the founder of Budget Alchemy, a system developed for health coaches to end the stress and anxiety around numbers. It is a holistic system combining personal finance and business cash flow strategies using Profit First and YNAB (You Need a Budget). She has helped dozens of coaches implement this system and helped hundreds more calculate revenue goals that actually make sense! She is a certified health coach from IIN and worked in corporate finance for 15 years before venturing out on her own in 2015 and thrives on being location independent. She loves traveling, wine, bicycles, knitting and a good cup of tea (in England) and coffee (in Italy).

Christine H.: Hey everyone, and welcome to this episode of the 360 Health Biz podcast. And today, its me! Your host, Christine Hansen and the adorable, wonderfully beautiful partner of mine Kendra Perry! At 6:00 AM and still she looks beautiful.

Christine H.: And, we also have a very special guest today who saved my life Amber Dugger. So I'm really excited because we're going to talk hardcore money today. It's a topic that makes us shiver, shake in our boots, but it is actually something that we need to get a grip on. Now before we do that, if you love the topic, if you think we're cute and funny and intelligent and smart and everything, then obviously please leave us a review on Itunes. A five star review would be amazing. And as a thank you, you can head over to our website 360healthbizpodcast.com and you can get a free gift which is a complete tool kit full of [stuff] that we love to use, online tools, you name it, everything is in there with an explanation and sometimes coupon codes. So go and check it out, it's entirely free. Now, to introduce you to Amber. So Amber is the founder of Budget Alchemy a system developed for health coaches to end the stress and anxiety around numbers. Amen. And I will tell you a story about that. It is a [holistic] system combining personal finance and business cash flow strategies using profit first and YNAB which stands for You Need a Budget. She has helped dozens of coaches, including myself, implement this system and helped hundreds more calculate revenue goals, that actually make sense. She's a certified health coach from IIN and worked for corporate finance for 15 years before venturing out on her own in 2015, and she thrives on being location independent. She loves traveling, wine, I like that, bicycles, mixing and a good cup of tea in England and coffee in Italy. I love that.

Kendra Perry: Great bio!

Christine H.: Absolutely it is [inaudible]. Amber and I met because I hired her. Basically I saw her because a friend of mine, [Meryl] was talking about how she was actually getting a grip of her money, was able to calculate, predict, how much money she needed and then things really started to happen much easier. It was much easier to plan, to manifest, whatever you want to call it. And at the time, I think I felt like a lot of us do, I was in my business, I knew that I had money in the bank account but I never really knew how much. I refused to look at my bank statements, I just ignored looking into my bank account unless I needed to wire money and had to take a look at it. And it was just a scary thing, right. Especially at the beginning of your business when things are not as rosy, and when it's tough. Sometimes, we can be very good at ignoring our numbers. So I reached out to Amber because I knew we have to get a grip on this right, because also our personal finances, everything was okay, we had savings. But I remember that my husband at that time he had paid our bills first and our mortgage was supposed to go out afterwards, and usually it was the other way around, mortgage would always go out and we would pay the bills with whatever was left over. So this time, he had already paid the bills, which meant the bank couldn't take out all of our mortgage because we didn't have enough money in that bank account and that freaked me out. I was like, “There's no way, the mortgage is the holy thing. There's no way that we cannot pay the mortgage.” And we could, but we had to dip into savings. So that was the point where I was like I need to become an adult and actually know how much money do I need to make. How can I prepare myself for tax seasons? How can I not stress about this thing? And so I reached out to Amber and she completely changed my world. So Amber tell us a little bit about... I think I'm a typical story of people that you work with, I imagine, but tell me, the people who are listening, a little bit about how people start off with you and what you do in order for us to get to where you actually have a plan and feel comfortable with money, kind of thing

Amber Dugger: Sure, well first of all I wanna just thank you both for having me on. This is just such an honor to be here. I'm really excited to talk with your listeners and learn more about what it is that they may be getting stuck with as well. This is such a common topic and it's a topic that hasn't been spoken about been spoken about for a very long time. We've been very silent about our personal anxieties, struggles, shame, guilt around money and that time has come to an end. It is time for us to start speaking openly about this so that we can move past it. We have the most amazing talents and abilities. We are motivated and we are ready to just take on the world, right. We have these awesome businesses. We can make great money and now its time to figure out exactly how to start keeping some of it. Budget Alchemy was the original name; it's now Profit For Keeps. So anyone that's looking for it, just make sure to look for Profit For Keeps. I named it that for a reason and that is because we wanna be able to actually see some evidence of the success in our business and we also then wanna move to something called Profit For Joy. Money is truly just a resource and we have all of these thoughts about it being very complicated and there's a reason for that. It's not because in the last 40 years we became completely illiterate about money. It's the environment that has changed. So in the past we would have cash. Everyone had cash and it was very easy to determine if we could afford something, because if we didn't have enough cash, we wouldn't pay for it right? [crosstalk] And of course in some ways it allowed us to not get into debt, but at the same time, it also allowed us to know exactly where we were all the time with money. And there's a psychological exchange when you hand over money and then you receive something back, you have exchanged value in tangible terms. It makes sense right? But if you hand over a card, and then you buy the thing, and then they give you back your card and the thing, you've now just rewarded yourself.

Kendra Perry: Yeah

Amber Dugger: Right, because it's a little switch

Kendra Perry: Its true.

Amber Dugger: And since we've started using electronic payments, consumer debt has skyrocketed and its because we don't see it. Paying 25$ on card seems very different than paying 25$ in cash.

Kendra Perry: Yes.

Amber Dugger: And the creditors know this, they use psychology. Their main goal is to rack up as much balances as possible, so they can then get the interest. So you have this whole industry against the consumer, wanting to make money off of them. At the same time we now have this new way of paying for things, like our phone, where we just wave a magic wand, or use our watch and wave that right. So now we're not even giving anything away and we're still receiving stuff. So for any of you listening that you're feeling like, "Oh I'm so guilt... I feel so much shame around the debt that I carry." I want you to first remind yourself that you're in an environment where it is absolutely normal to have debt, and an industry that wants and encourages it. So that's the first thing, the second thing is it's really important to refrain the debt that you currently have; if you have any. And the reason for that is, it has gotten you to this exact point right now. So to change the attitude around it and look at it with gratitude and say, "This has gotten me my education, this has gotten me exactly where I am right now and it has leveraged me to allow myself to be here and I'm not ready to take the next step forward to create my own leverage for myself." And there's just some small tweaks to make that happen and everyone, I truly believe everyone is good with money they just haven't found a system, possibly, that helps them feel empowered with the numbers. So I'm all about just making numbers super approachable simple, and tied directly to what it is that really brings you and those that love joy.

Kendra Perry: Oh wow, I love that. And it's so true, I never even thought of that exchange of energy because I'm pretty bad for buying everything on Amazon prime. I'm just like, “Ooh that, that, I need that, I need this, I need this!” And then I look at my credit and I'm like what the hell did I buy this month? There's Amazon prime 30 times. [crosstalk]

Christine H.: You just see Amazon, Amazon, Amazon. What was it [crosstalk] I don't even remember.

Kendra Perry: I like blacked out and now I have hundreds of different types of paperclips.

Amber Dugger: The same goes for Target. For a lot of people Target can be that black hole of just amazing stuff, but like what did I buy at Target that's 300$. Yeah, so to answer your question about where people start, I think it's important regardless of where you are in business. If you're making your first thousand a month or your making 100 thousand a month. Its important to take a step back and first ask yourself, “Why did I go into business for myself? What is it that I truly wanna do with the money that comes into my business?” Assume you're paying your bills, assume that you have no debt, assume that you have savings. These are all possible things. But once you get to that point, what is it that you want to accomplish, what is it that you want to experience, what is it that you want to change, to impact? These core things can happen, they can be realized, and the only way it will happen is to get really clear on that. A lot of times when I speak to people for the first time, they're so focused on the idea that it's not actually possible to move forward, that it's not possible to get out of debt. That's a very real, normal feeling. So if you're feeling those things don't think that you're the only one, there are so many people out there feeling that and silently suffering. I want you to know that you're not alone and the best way to move forward out of that is to recognize, first of all that yes, I can do this and secondly there has to be a bigger reason why. Otherwise, we will stay in this cycle because it's comfortable. It may not be fun, but it's comfortable. So that's the first thing, second thing is really gaining awareness about your situation. Are you making enough money to cover your bills? Are you making enough money to be profitable? And I think that's the single most important thing, besides the why, because you can have all these dreams, but if you don't have a business that's generating a profit, it will not get you there. The profit carries you forward to allow you to realize those things. So we calculate a revenue goal, we get profit first percentages which are really simply just percentages of your money going to specific things. So its certain amount going directly to profit, so its like a savings account. A certain amount going to your personal pay so that you can pay the bills that you wanna pay for your lifestyle, your lifestyle's gonna be different from the next entrepreneur and the next coach, and that's fine. Some of us live in New York City, some of us live in Kansas City. The cost of living is gonna be different, therefore your personal needs are gonna be different. So having a generic revenue goal is a detriment to everyone because it doesn't make any sense. It used to drive me crazy when I would see those Facebook adds, “Make 5K as a health coach!” That may work for someone but I know for sure, for me, when I was starting out as a health coach, I needed to make 8K to meet my goals. So it just always frustrated me thinking, “Well, I would always be behind or be going into debt making 5K a month.” Whereas someone who needs 3K will be like, “Woo, 5K's amazing!”

Christine H.: That was brutal, like brutal, brutal, to actually look at how much we needed to make even as a family, right, at the time. Even with my husbands salary and mine, actually looking at our subscriptions, our insurances, our monthly bills, our yearly bills, which we tend to forget, and then I'm like oops, okay savings. That was brutal. That was super hard for me, because I was not making enough money at the time to pay fat taxes, plus living expenses and paying myself was just not in the cards, right [inaudible]. So, knowing that, I think a lot of people have no clue, like they literally don't know. I didn't know how much money I needed to set aside each month to actually just cover my basic expenses without any luxury items or anything on top of that, or any of my business expenses. I think that's the exercise I would ask that I would ask everyone to start doing. Look in that folder where you have your annual bills and when you do the calculation, its very enlightening in a positive way. I don't know if I found it enlightening, I found it [crosstalk]

Kendra Perry: Shocking.

Amber Dugger: That's probably the most emotional point and it also takes the most courage. I'm so inspired by everyone that sits in front of me ready to do that work, because it is a point in time where you've decided enough is enough, I'm ready to get clarity and I'm ready to have a tangible goal to hit. The reason I believe so many have not done this in the past is no one has ever really talked about how to do it before. Going through health coaching school, I was shocked. People were talking about how much percentage of your income you should put to investing and they aren't even talking about how much money you should be making as a health coach and suggesting that we start of at like 200$ a client per month. And I was doing the calculations, I was like, I'm gonna need like 55 clients. So I encourage all of you to go to my website and download a free calculator. Its called the revenue profitability calculator. I offer that as gift to everyone, because it is the single most important thing and if you do that you now have a tangible goal. You don't need a lot of information, you just need to know roughly how much you want to pay yourself each month and how much your monthly expenses are. That's really it. You put those two things in and you get a number. There's more to it after that, but getting that number is powerful, because now you can look at seeing, okay, "if I need to make 12000$ a month to live this ideal life that I've put together here, how many spaces do I have available for clients? How much am I currently charging?" If I have 10 spaces and I need 12000$, okay well that's 1200 a month on average I need to charge my clients. How can I create a package that would allow for that. Or what other revenue strings can go into that so then I need 6000$. There's so many different ways you can start playing. But it's a simple thing. It's like taking a piece of paper and saying okay, 12000 at the top. Alright how are different ways that I can make this happen and it's a really exciting thing because now you have a real thing to go after and its not like shooting in the dark. Which is amazing that so many of us can continue to run a business without having that number, so just imagine once you do. Its like this, okay watch out world, I'm driven now, I'm getting this number now.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, that's awesome and where does all this fear around money stem from? Because I remember when I... I had a look at my finances, a few years ago and I read that book called, I think its called I Can Make You Rich, I can't remember the authors name, but it's a pretty popular book.

Amber Dugger: Ramit Sethi

Kendra Perry: Yeah Ramit Sethi. I looked in my finances and then I remember crying to my boyfriend in the [inaudible] meeting, like “I'm unsuccessful! I don't know what I'm doing! Oh my god! What happening.” We had just started dating so he was like oh god. I had this fear of even looking at my bank account and where do you think that stems from?

Amber Dugger: Well that's a great question. I think it can really depend from person to person. Well first of all, I just want to share that money is 99% behavioral and emotional [crosstalk]. So there can be 1001 reasons why it might instill fear, but I would believe, one of the most common ones that I see, is that we simply fear what we don't understand. We may not admit that out loud, but I know that for my own situation thinking about when I first started out as a health coach, I was scared of marketing. I just didn't understand it, I don't really know how to do it, I didn't really understand the ideal client. So I was always scared to market myself. With money a lot of are expected, somehow, out of thin air to understand money. This is a generational problem I would say, because back in the 30's and 40's we had the Great Depression, [inaudible] so then the way to manage money was just don't spend it ever. So that generation had money because they simply lived a really simple life with really not enjoying very much. Even to the point, I remember my grand-mother telling me... she gave me a silver platter when I graduated college and she said, “this is the silver platter that we used and just a trick, when you are starting out and you don't have a lot of money, buy a really small roast but then fill it with potatoes and root vegetables to make it look like its bigger.” And this was a reality for that generation.So we have that. Then we go into more of the baby boomer phase where this is so much opportunity and people are making a really great living with pension. So then they've learned from their parents to not spend a lot of money and to just work and be able to have that pension and that retirement. Now were getting to a point where things are so different from what our parents, our grand-parents experiences and there's so many different types of loans I didn't even know existed until I started working with the clients that I work with now. There are loans on every possible way that you could bring in money. There's loans on your pay pass settlements, there's loans on your stripes settlements, there's loans on your house, your car. You can pretty much get a loan on anything. This is causing a problem where people tend to ... if they get into this cycle, more than half of their expenses are now being paid on interest. So you can get to a point where just almost all of your payments are going to debt repayments. This is a timing thing now, because if we can live below our needs and at the same time pay down our debt, then we're creating our own loans to ourselves. Because if we have our own savings than we can borrow from ourselves without paying any money. So these loans are just costing us so much money. But, to get back to your question about where it stems from, I think it can be the fear of the unknown, it can also be experiences that we also had as children. So there are people who actually stress more about money and have a lot of savings because they saw their parents never have any money. And then you have some people that are scared that it will be taken away or be used as power against them. That has happened with different family structures and things like that. So its a really good thing and a really form of self-care to explore this with yourself and see where does this stem from. I know that Christine knows that I just love this book, I talk about it all the time, I always have it here.

Christine H.: I recommend it to everyone. It changed my life. I'm not kidding you. That's when I went from charging 800$ to 10000$. That book. That was it.

Kendra Perry: Who writes it? Tapping Into Wealth.

Christine H.: Tapping Into Wealth by Margaret M. Lynch. It uses EFT.-

Kendra Perry: I'm going on Amazon prime right now to buy it.

Amber Dugger: Don't wait, just kidding. But what's so amazing about this book is every time I read it I learn something new about my relationship with money. Because we never get over money blocks, we always will have different ... because we continue to have experiences. So those experiences will allow us to continue to add to our relationship but I find that as I continue to explore my own relationship with money, it becomes less and less part. It's not a good thing, it's not a bad thing. Money is simply a resource to allow me to do the things that I wanna do. Its meant to flow. it's not meant to just stay there and not doing anything right. I mean if all hung out in a room and never left and we had 3 million dollars sitting there, it would be a pretty boring life, if we couldn't do anything with it. We'd be like, okay maybe we need to burn this so we can have some meat. So it was really just a reflection or representation of the ability to then exchange that value for something else. So yeahAnd, money, you want to have enough so that its aging to about maybe 100 days, but then after that you want it to move in and out so that it can flow. Water gets toxic and [murky] if it just stays in one place. But if water's moving, its so beautiful, and pristine and fresh. And it's the same thing with money. If that is something that resonates with you, I highly recommend, I'm a book nerd, its called The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. She describes this beautifully. I've learned so much from her on really understanding what money really is.

Christine H.: I love that. I also have to say, the good thing is that your money blocks, once you know them, they're not gone as you said, but you can detect them, right. So, I think for me, the main money block was, like, I was always bad at math. So for me money equals math. [inaudible] it's the same thing, hence I'm bad at it. I never had to worry about money in my life, in a way. So I never really bothered to deal with it. so the other thing is that, you know, once I worked with you Amber, I kind of understood that it's not the easiest thing for me. I think other people just get things much quicker and but its doable and it gives me a lot of power. The other thing is that I gave emotions to money. Even now, you know when I had savings that came from my family, it was bad money for me. I didn't want to use it because it wasn't the money that I actually made in my business. And I had to understand that actually no it's not good or it's bad, it's a resource that I have for a reason. I just went to do some major life changes and needed my savings to start fresh and I've had really bad in the beginning because it was from my business, but I had to use it from my savings. But in the end, who cares, you know. It is allowing me to start something new and since then, my business has taken off so much more than ever before. So I think I still know when I sabotage myself and I actually reached out to Amber recently because I was like, "okay I'm starting to do it again." But at least I know. I know and I'm like, “okay, this weekend, its big girl panties on and let's sit down and do the money thing." Because once you set it up, its so easy. It's so so easy, you know. Its just taking that step and doing it, I think is the biggest one. Whether you think you're bad with money, like the cliché sentence, or whether you think its super scary to look at that bank account, I think its always worth it and I really really, especially in the health coach business, where people want to help other people, you cannot do that, if you cannot pay your bills. Its just not doable. You are also running a business. Money and business is just a thing that goes together.

Amber Dugger: As your speaking, its coming to mind for me, I'm just envisioning someone listening to this for the first time and I'm guessing that there might be a question of, "Yes, this all sound amazing, and yes I really wanna do this but how do I do this? What do I do first?" And so would you guys like me to just explain a little more about what I think would be the three most important things to do.

Christine H.: Yes, please do.

Amber Dugger: So if you're listening to this and you're feeling a little overwhelmed or maybe you're feeling inspired or maybe a little bit of both, the first thing that I would suggest that you do is just take a moment and close your eyes and just take a deep breathe. And thank yourself for having these feelings and for listening to this and wanting to take action. This is a beautiful form of self-care and as you promote that to your clients as health coaches it's also important, as you know, to do this for yourself. And the next thing I want you to just think about is what does your ideal life look like? What are the feelings that you want to feel in this ideal life? And just sit with that for a couple of minutes and really feel the things around you in that ideal life and the people and the images and the smells. This is something that you can do every morning and visualizing what it is that you are wanting to achieve. And it will also help you gain clarity over what it is that you truly want to do with the resources that come into your business. so there are two things that I see most people, especially when their starting out as a health coach, that's blocking themselves from money. If you do not have a very easy way for people to pay you, I want you to do that first, and that can be as easy as getting a stripe account and using Acuity Scheduling. That's my favorite one, but I'm sure you guys have your own favorite ones. The second thing that I would suggest is that you get a way for to book in. If there's not a place or space for people to book in, then you won't be able to have the calls, and you won't be able to ask for the money. So those are the two most common things I see block, and don't make it really complicated, make it an easy way for them to pay. The second thing is if you've done that or you've got, "yep, check, check". The second thing is, sit down and do one of two things. If you wanna do it very simply, just write down a number that you wanna pay yourself every month. Very simple. Second thing, just quickly tally up your business expenses that you currently have and write that number down. Then go and get that revenue calculator and put those two things in, and once you get your number put it on a post-it note and stick it up next to your desk and then maybe put one in your wallet, put one on your bathroom mirror, put one, if you can, put it all around your house. This is definitely something that the Tapping Into Wealth girl talked about and I did it. Every time I change this number, I hit that number. So its a very powerful thing. Just putting it out into the universe.If you decide that you wanna go a little bit deeper than just writing down the numbers, which is totally fine if that's what you do. If you wanna have another step, than go to your bank account and print off your last statement, and just take a highlighter and mark anything that you feel like you weren't using. Because there's a difference between spending on luxury and over consumption. Over consumption could be-

Christine H.: Kendra!

Kendra Perry: I think I over consume! Oh my god! I think I spend too much money on random shit! Oh my gosh

Christine H.: [crosstalk]

Kendra Perry: This is hitting my soul right now.

Amber Dugger: Heres where you can determine if it is or not.

Kendra Perry: Okay.

Amber Dugger: This hand cream that I don't really use, it was a gift actually, but if I had purchased this and it sat here never used. I never used it because I didn't like the ingredients in it, this would be over consumption. Because I bought it but don't use it, don't care about it, don't prioritize it. Now if I have a 30$ german notebook that has fancy paper in it, and it feels amazing and it works really well with my 100$ fountain pen. But if I use it and it brings me joy and I hear the scratch of the golden nib onto this beautiful linen paper, and it gives me that spark, that gratitude, that feeling of heart coherence, then it's absolutely not over consumption, it's luxury. Over consumption can be a three dollar tube of cream and 130$ worth of stationary can be luxury. So just ask yourself before you purchase your next item, will I prioritize the use of this item, will I enjoy this item, is this something that I will want to have in my life, do I have the space for it? If any of those are no, ask yourself if you really need it. Because there's no reason spending money on something you don't care about, but it is important to spend on the things that you do.

Kendra Perry: You just made me feel really good for buying a 6000$ infrared sauna.

Amber Dugger: Good.

Kendra Perry: That's not over consumption that is luxury [crosstalk]

Christine H.: I have so much space in my bedroom, I'm like it would be super nice to have that sauna in there.

Kendra Perry: It's the best thing ever.

Christine H.: But for example, like just a silly example, and people probably aren't gonna understand, but I got a pair of underwear. It just had the top was available here in Luxembourg, but the bottom was nowhere to be found in my size, so I had to order it from [inaudible]. So the bottom alone is 56 pounds and then the shipping was 27. So in the end I spent 80 pounds, I don't even wanna know what that is in dollars on a thong. And I'm like, "should I do this?" In the end it looks gorgeous and when I wear it [inaudible] its amazing. Its super amazing and when I wear it, obviously I'm not only wearing that, like I wear clothes. But I wear it when-

Amber Dugger: But do you see this glowing emitting from you, and this energy and just this like lightness and like it just brings you up. And that's so important for us to give ourselves these things.

Christine H.: And when I do a deal, when I know that I go to a meeting that I have to close a deal, you can bet that's what I wear. Because it just uplifts everything for me. Everyone has their thing whether it's a family pen, whether it is a infrared sauna, whether it is, well anyway it doesn't matter. You're completely right that, you know, spend your money there instead of cheaper stuff that doesn't make you happy actually.

Amber Dugger: Yeah or expensive stuff that doesn't make you happy-

Christine H.: Yeah

Amber Dugger: And cheap old stuff can make you very happy.

Christine H.: True true.

Amber Dugger: Like this ruler, I love this ruler. [inaudible] but I have it on my desk [crosstalk].

Kendra Perry: I love that you made that distinction because I was actually thinking the other day, I'm like, "man, I spend a lot of money". But I spend a lot of money on my health, you know, my health is really important to me. I buy high quality supplements, I buy crazy light machines, I buy all kinds of stuff, but I use it all and in the end it helps me feel good energy wise and so now I feel a little bit better about spending money on that stuff.

Christine H.: But you also have a budget on your supplements, I don't know, right.

Amber Dugger: Sure, so the other component of this is also recognizing that these things require resources. So this is where it goes back to looking and assessing what is it that I really need to be my best self, to be energized, to have that ability to wake up in the morning and feel ready to tackle the day ahead of me. As you get more clear on that, then writing it down, assessing how much it will cost, is important because then you can put it into the revenue calculator, you can see how much you wanna make and then you can start making plans to hit and exceed that number. We all have the ability to do this and every single person can do this. Its just a matter of us taking this into our own hands and stop being bullied by an industry and also by this perception that we're not good with money. I just have to touch on this because this always bothered me when I was in college. I was one of the only girls in my finance major, and I was surrounded by a lot of really big egos. They all wanted wall street investors. I had no desire to be a wall street investor. I saw it as a big hoax and really you can put your money in index funds and beat most of the investors 99% of the time. So the professor walked in one day and said, "Alright this is the advanced level investing course", there's all these guys that are getting ready to take there series 7. And he said, "okay, half of you in this room is gonna fail before mid-term, so I'm gonna share the most important thing you need to know to accumulate wealth in about five minutes before we move on to the other areas that will not help you nearly as much as this one tip." And I'm looking around and guys are just like whatever. I'm thinking, "did I hear this right? Why is not everyone taking out their pen and paper and writing this down?" It was that, it was to put your money in index funds, because as history states, the market continues to grow and unless we have a huge crash, which if we have a huge crash everything will crash not just certain things, everything is gonna crash.so by putting it into something that you know is increasing in value steadily over time, why wouldn't you do that, right? And you don't have to do anything. Its super cheap, you don't have to pay for someone to do that. So I knew that there was something bigger that I wanted to do with my education. But I saw these, mostly guys, want to show how smart they were. Now this is just my perception, but from my experience this is what was happening. And so they would go around and even in corporate, when I was in corporate, I would see the whole picture, I'd be like okay "we just need to spend less money or we need to make more money". That's really as simple as it gets here, right? Instead, they would be like, "oh well we have to look at this ratio, we have to look at this and we have to look at this performance index and all this stuff." And its like okay, but you're not actually doing anything to fix the big problem which is we have no cash. So I say all this because if you feel confused about money, or you feel like when someone talks about money that their talking about all these really big things and confusing what's shorts and stocks and puts and all this stuff. I'm not speaking for the person talking about this, however, in general, my experience has been that this is to show how smart they are about it and how dumb you are. You're not. Money is very simple. If you have money, and you want to spend less than you have, and if you something cost more than you have, don't spend it. That's as simple as it gets. I say this because its become more and more evident to me that the deepest reason people don't look at it is they don't wanna appear stupid, they don't wanna appear like they don't know what they're talking about. I encourage you to start educating yourself and just looking and reading blog articles and possibly picking up this book and Ramit Sethi's book is hands down one of my favorite personal finance books, I'll Teach You To Be Rich. That's why I have not written a book, because he wrote it. Everything he wrote I'm like, "Yes! Yes!" I had a chance to meet him last year and I told him, I was like, "I love what you wrote. If everyone would read that book they would be in such a better state of mind about money, because you make it so approachable."

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and one of the first things I did after reading this book was set up index funds. My boyfriend loved that you said that because I think people think investing is really complicated. And I know people are paying really high management fees to get a person to manage their investments when really that person is gonna lose against the computer algorithm every time. So, I think [inaudible] is really important, its really affordable and over the long term it makes you significantly more money.

Amber Dugger: Heck yes sister!

Kendra Perry: Yeah![crosstalk]

Christine H.: Amazing! So I can, just personally again, we emphasize and totally vouch for Amber and her service. Its been a game changer for me, I think it was literally the first step that changed everything, myself included because then I read the Margaret Lynch book and then I read Joe Dispenza's Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. When channel all of these together it changes you as a person and you know what to do, you're not afraid of money which is helpful if you want to make money. Its life changing. So I highly, highly suggest having just a chat with Amber if you are feeling like I did in the beginning or like any of the scenarios that we discussed today. So Amber just quickly let us know if we have people who are like "okay, I am ready, I want to face this, I want to be happy, I really want to know what to do." How can they get in touch with you?

Amber Dugger: Oh well first of all thank you for saying that, I really do appreciate it. My mission is really to make my business [inaudible]. I want this to not be an issue. The best way to get a hold of me is first to download the calculator, you'll get lots of information on how to take that further.

Christine H.: [crosstalk]Where can people find it?

Amber Dugger: Yes, it's just my website amberdugger.com. The other place to go would be my free community in Facebook, its called Sweet Life Purpose for Money. In there, there's all sort of resources and you can ask questions there and then there's a way to book a call on my website as well and its just amberdugger.com/workwithme.

Kendra Perry: Awesome. That's the first thing I'm gonna do after this call is I'm gonna go download your probability calculator and I'm like, "okay I gotta get more organized, I need to know my numbers, I love this." I actually love numbers. I never thought I did, but they kind of tingle me a little bit.

Christine H.: They turn me on when I get them in my bank account.

Kendra Perry: Oh yeah!

Amber Dugger: Well ladies, thank you so much for having me. Its been such a pleasure.

Christine H.: Absolutely

Kendra Perry: Thank you so much

Christine H.: Thank you so much. And you guys don't forget to leave us a five star review on Itunes. And-

Kendra Perry: Five star!

Christine H.: We will talk to you in two weeks. So thanks for coming and listening and watching and keep doing this.

Kendra Perry: Good words of advice.

Christine H.: Alright. [crosstalk] alright you guys thanks for listening and talk to you soon! Bye!

Brendan began his career as a personal trainer and nutritionist at the age of 19. He is now an Integrative Clinician and Functional Practitioner specializing in complex chronic disease. He loves all things holistic health and fitness and has many fitness, nutrition, and clinical credentials. He is the owner and founder of the virtual integrative clinic, Metabolic Solutions LLC. Brendan is also the current AFDNP Director for Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. In his free time he enjoys expanding his education, studying philosophy, writing, reading, anything outdoors, and anything that expands the mind and soul 🙂

Kendra Perry: Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to the 360 Health Biz Podcast. I'm Kendra Perry and hanging out with my friends. Number one is my number one or number two, Christine Hansen, looking sexy, beautiful, unbelievably attractive as always, and I know she loves this intro.

Christine H.: I do. I do. It makes my life really ... It's amazing. I have an impeccable style in clothing, which is why Kendra and I are completely matched up today.

Kendra Perry: We are matched up today. Awesome. It's like we planned it or something, hey? Cool, well we have a really good show coming up for you today. We're gonna get nerdy because we're hanging out with Brendan Vermeire and he is super intelligent, super smart. We're gonna be talking about autoimmune conditions and working with clients who have different autoimmune diseases and conditions, which is pretty important because it's a pretty common thing going on in today's society. So, Brendan, amazingly, started his career at 19, which blows our mind, because I know me and Christine at 19 were dancing on the bar in white T-shirts.

Christine H.: [inaudible] Reminder at least, so it's painful.

Brendan V.: Where are those pictures for the throwback Thursday?

Christine H.: On Facebook right now!

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I know I actually posted my first Facebook profile picture after I got inspired by Christine's. Yours is like, you wasted at a bar and I'm in a green leprechaun costume, making a pretty stunning pose, I'd have to say. Anyways let's get back on track here. Brendan is an Integrative Clinician and Functional Practitioner, specializing in complex chronic disease. He loves all things ballistic health fitness and has many fitness nutrition and clinical credentials. He is the owner and founder of Virtual Integrative Clinic Metabolic Solutions. He is also the current AFDNP Director for Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. He loves expanding his education, studying philosophy, writing, reading, anything outdoors and expanding his mind and soul.So Welcome Brendan! Thank you for being here. Welcome to the show.

Brendan V.: Absolutely, Happy to be here, hanging out with you both.

Kendra Perry: Awesome, so today we are going to be talking about autoimmune conditions. Can you tell us a little bit about, maybe for some of our newbie people, what is an autoimmune condition, why should we car about it and, people are going to be coming across it a lot, so what should they be looking out for?

Brendan V.: Yeah, absolutely. Autoimmunity is one of those weird ass phenomemon where the immune system starts destroying the bodies own tissues. Autoimmune, the name kind of explains it. I think people don't realize, how big of a problem it is. When you look at the disease statics for America, we all know cardiovascular disease is number 1, but cancer is listed at number 2. The reason why is because all types are cancer are collectively put into the same statistic bucket. The thing is, what people don't know, is if you took all the different diagnosed... which first off autoimmunity is horrendously under diagnosed, horrendously under screened for, under considered, but even still if you added up all the diagnosed conditions of autoimmunity and put them all together it would our rank cancer. So we really are in an autoimmune crisis, that's just not public knowledge yet. It's just not commonly known, but it's extremely common. We have to realize that a lot of these mechanisms, they have these kind of root caused, contributing factors and it's just a matter of, Alright you have autoimmunity. I also like to think of like a forest fire. There's a forest fire raging in your body. Which trees are being burnt, whichever trees are going to be the weak link, whatever is most susceptible to being burnt, whatever is not as resilient. It's a huge problem.

Christine H.: [inaudible] Go ahead Kendra.

Kendra Perry: I was just going to say, can we dig into some of those root causes. What would you say are the primary things that are causing these different various types of autoimmune conditions?

Brendan V.: Obviously in the functional integrative space, we're all pretty dead set on the idea of [inaudible] hyperpermeability, kind of setting the stage for autoimmunity. Which you know some people say it's an absolute, it has to be there otherwise it doesn't happen. Others say, well most of the time, either way. The majority of the time we need to be looking at the gut health and the intestinal hyperpermeability but more so, it's going to be like, what are the triggers, what things are causing the immune system to freak out. That's where you go to our conventional physician and they pretty much say, alright you're just one of those unlucky bastards, where your own immune system is destroying your own tissues, we have no explanation for why this ever happens, there is nothing you can do about it, we just need to put you on some kind of drug to manage your symptoms for the rest of your life. If it gets bad enough, we'll go in and do surgery and remove the tissue. Which is frankly unacceptable. I get really fired up with that, because in reality there is tons of mechanisms and tons of contributing factors whether it's some kind of pathogen like Lyme disease or Babesiosis or it could be something as simple as toxins, like Bisphenol A, which makes plastic malleable and flexible. We consume tons of BPA and tons of these chemicals. When it gets into the blood stream, like BPA will bind to an estrogen receptor and the immune system doesn't know what the fuck that is. It's like Hey let's go attack that. If that receptor that it's stuck on. The cell is going to get damaged and it starts triggering this inflammatory cascade and pop, pop, pop, it all just goes up in flames.

Christine H.: I also think a lot of people don't know that they have an autoimmune disease. Like they know they have a disease like Hashimoto's or Rheumatosis or something like that but they don't actually know that it is their immune system attacking their own thing. They literately get the name and they get the prescription. Do you sometimes have people who you're working with or who inquire and then you take an intake form and they actually don't know that it is an autoimmune disease that they have.

Brendan V.: Absolutely. That's kind of another thing with our health care system. It's not an educational system and it's like, how do you overcome disease without some education and without some self ownership. You got to take ownership. This is a thing going on in my body, I need to understand what it is, why it happens, how to fix it, what can I do, what do I have control of to positively influence the situation. Obviously we all know that's not how it is. It's like, we think you have this, hears your medication, get it filled up the street at the pharmacy and that's all there is to it. A lot of people don't know [inaudible] I'm not licensed, nothing. Your immune system is destroying this part of your body, so you tell me what that means to you.

Kendra Perry: It is crazy. It is sad, that ultimately a lot of people who have long standing autoimmune conditions that doesn't go treated with some sort of effective treatment route, they're going to get parts of their body removed. Parts of their colon, maybe their thyroid is going to get removed. It's just crazy because it's not the organ or tissues fault, it's the immune system and you need to figure out, what is driving that. Let's talk a little bit more about some of the non-negotiable things you always do, with people who have autoimmune conditions. What are the things that they need to be doing or considering, if they want to see any type of moving on that needle.

Brendan V.: Especially with the demographic I work with, I pretty much assume...where it's like in the court system your innocent until proven guilty, in my clinic you're guilty until I can prove you're innocent. With my clients I am pretty much going to assume they have some degree of autoimmunity and I'm looking for it with my testing. If I can't find it, I can't find any data that proves that they are autoimmune, I might be a little more relaxed, but as soon as I see the evidence, it's game on. We have to be that much more strict. With diet, if I see the antibodies high, we're going autoimmune paleo for now. Not that you have to be 100% that strict for the rest of your life, but we gotta get control of this situation. Let's buckle down. The thing with autoimmunity, there is so many factors that could be contributing to it. We can't be messing around with, lets leave this variable in but lets play with this variable. No we gotta blank slate that shit, start from ground zero and build up, until we get those antibodies negative. When it comes to finding like a maintenance lifestyle, you have to do the same in reverse. Introduce one thing at a time. Your antibodies are remaining negative, so we're good, Oh they're starting to go up, Stop, back up. It's an honest process to say the least.

Kendra Perry: What's some of the testing you use to measure that autoimmune activity?

Brendan V.: My standard 3 tests I run on every client that signs up is an, dutch hormone test, an organic acid test, from great plains and then pretty extensive blood work, blood chemistry. I build custom panels. I'll use the [inaudible] tumor from vibrant wellness or the [inaudible] from BSL labs. Pretty regularly as well. With the blood work that I do, I like to use the little cheap blood test that's and AA or antinuclear antibody test. It's like $14 and if it's positive, we know there is some degree of autoimmune activity. Then too, every blood test I do I am looking at their thyroid, I am looking at their thyroid antibodies. In my opinion, anytime you do a thyroid test, you gotta look at the antibodies. Always, Always, because 84+% of all hyperthyroid cases are, it's not just regular old my thyroid is underactive, it's Hashimoto's, and that's just not looked for enough. Once I do see any evidence of autoimmunity I'll usually go ahead and run the [inaudible], which is a multiple tissue antibody test. Where basically we are looking for what tissues are being attacked and destroyed. People get really caught up on, well I have celiac and that's a totally different thing than rheumatoid. Not really, it's more similar than not. There are things provoking your immune system to destroy your own tissue, it's just what's the weak link. We have to identify it and trap it.

Christine H.: Do you have clients that have multiple autoimmune, I don't want to say diseases, but maybe building sites? Where they have their thyroid being attacked at the same time as their pancreas [inaudible]?

Brendan V.: Absolutely. That's where I don't think clients, patients, need to get too caught up on the label, the diagnoses, it's more just understanding. This is a complex multi faceted process that's going on in my body, so what approach do I need to take to put out all these fires. There's a raging fire in my thyroid, there's a small fire in my joint tissue. Either way, we got to put out the fire. But yes the most recent, [inaudible] I ran, the thyroid antibodies were elevated, which corresponded with the blood work, blood panel, that we already did. Also like her collagen had antibodies against it. Her connective tissue being attacked and destroyed. Would any rheumatologist diagnose that as some type of connective tissues disease. Probably not, because it was only yay high, but it's still there, it's still relevant.

Kendra Perry: That's really good point. I have a big issue with conventional medicine, is that there is this huge spectrum of things that can be happening in between, of when you start having that activity in your body that your immune system goes haywire, starts attacking your system and between when you eventually get diagnosed, which could be 10 or 20 or even 30 years after that process is started. And most people aren't getting the proper blood work done. When you're talking about getting antibodies for thyroid testing, few doctors actually run that. Let's say you have a 30 year span of someone getting their antibodies checked every year, you actually might see those slowly increasing over time. At some point they get out of that "normal range" and suddenly that person gets that Hashimoto's diagnoses and it kind of leads people to believe that it happened over night. Like I was healthy and now I'm sick, but meanwhile it's actually been developing for years. It's just that our system is not really set up to detect that.

Brendan V.: One of my best success stories, best clients and also really good friend at this point. You can't go through an intensive healing process without getting close. She first came to me, like Oh I just want to do [inaudible] testing and I'm like, "Hi, who are you, why". She had told me, "I was diagnosed hyperthyroid 11 years ago, I was put on Synthroid, I took myself off Synthroid, I feel awful." The very first thyroid test I did, she had never had antibodies tested and the first one we did he TPAO was over 1,000.

Kendra Perry: Whoa...That's crazy.

Brendan V.: Literately it only said over 1,000. It didn't go any higher. So I don't know, it could've been 1300, for all I know.

Christine H.: That's insane.

Brendan V.: That is the perfect example of like, we know statistically 84% of all hyperthyroid cases are Hashimoto's. She got diagnosed 11 years ago, this is a forest fire that started beyond 11 years ago. 11 years ago is when she got diagnosed with hyperthyroid. Which really means the autoimmunity has been gone on since birth, 20 years, it's been goin on for a long time. I was the first person to access the wild fire. The beautiful part we put her on a functional, root cause protocol, we dropped those antibodies from 1,000 to 300 in 8 weeks.

Kendra Perry: Oh, Wow, that's crazy.

Brendan V.: Yeah, Insane.

Christine H.: Let me ask you a question. If you have some people you know are super sick. Their body is weak, they might have done tons of detox's, which might not happen [inaudible], because we talked about it last [inaudible], we talked about how detoxification can be dangerous if you are not fit and you don't know what you are doing. I have a lot of friends who are very weak. They come in, their body is not in the best of shape and I know if I push them too hard, it would be too much. So how do you handle that? When you have someone you can see that their body is going from beyond struggling to actually being super exhausted and about to just throw in the towel anyway?

Brendan V.: That is one thing that kind of makes it a little bit hard. You've got to be working with someone that really knows what they're doing, because...I don't know, on the one hand the functional integrative whole space industry, there's a lot of beauty in the fact that it's not monopolized. Because anything that gets monopolized gets corrupted. At the same time it also means that it's harder to know, can I trust who I'm working with, how do you qualify? Like somebody who really knows their shit. I know, for me, I like the nitty gritty complex people. One of my current clients, who is Lyme, mole, Hashimoto's, everything is wrong with her. It's like we got to take it one step at a time, and when I'm looking through her initial testing, I'm looking for every indicator that might tell me her body's not ready for x, y or z. Such as like, everybody loves giving people glutathione, because glutathione detoxes everything. You give glutathione to the wrong person, at the wrong time, you will destroy them. Kind of like with remineralization, you can't just start releasing a ton of toxins or heavy metals into the system, if their body is not prepared to conjugate and detox those. It does, it gets pretty complicated.

Kendra Perry: I love how you just said remineralization, you probably saw me light up. I love talking about minerals.

Brendan V.: We get to nerd out in like t-minus one month.

Kendra Perry: I know, I know, me and Brendan are doing a webinar together for Functional Diagnostic [inaudible] Mineral Analysis. I'm really excited about that.

Christine H.: That will be awesome.

Brendan V.: That'll be really good. I had to say it I knew you'd light up.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I'm like, let's talk about minerals, but no let's not talk about minerals. Let's talk about toxins because I know, obviously we live in a world where we're getting exposed to heavy metals, chemicals, pesticides, all this crap, drugs, all this stuff. I feel it's a bit hard sometimes to convince people that this is actually playing a major role in what's going on with you. Maybe sometimes I wonder if it's playing the biggest role. Can you speak a little bit to that and how metals and chemicals might play a role in somebody's autoimmune condition.

Brendan V.: I agree, I think that is probably the biggest offender that is probably driving a lot of this. We don't really have, we're in that early stage right now, where those of us, really it's only the Functional Integrative field that is leading that charge. Because that's what we do, we're the nerds that are trying to figure out, what thins are affecting our health negatively. What can we do to fix that. Period. That's the name of this game [inaudible]. I think the chemicals and things like [inaudible] electromagnetic fields. I've had the pleasure of hanging out with our friend Laura Adler and our friend Nicholas Beano, who are 2 figures who are each kind of in the nerd bubble of spreading awareness on that topic. The chemical topic, my God, there's, I'm trying to borrow from Laura's power point presentation, 86,000 chemicals that are registered in the US, for chemical manufacturing. Basically none of them have truly been thoroughly tested for human safety. The toxicology is more about, if we give you a dose, this big, of this one thing does it immediately cause acute organ failure. That's the standard we're going off. When in reality we are breathing in, smothering ourselves, Ingesting, thousands of chemicals, all day, every day and these things can have synergistic, compounding effects. Compound is literately to make more intense. That's what the definition of compound is. What happens when you compound thousand of chemicals in your biology that has not evolved, with these chemicals. That's where if you look at, not to go too hippy, but we got to talk about the planet too. You look at the living planet report, we've killed off, half of everything that lives on this planet in the past 40 years. How? Well look at how the timeline adds up with chemical manufacturing. The deer outside, they don't get to filter their water like I do. I can educate myself and do something abo it. Where all these poor plants and animals, they're stuck with, I either need to evolve my organs to know what to do with all this crap or I'm going to die off. And that's what's happening. Everything is just dying off.

Kendra Perry: That's really interesting to think about and I really wonder what's going to happen to humans. I look at children's health and I think there is something to be said about general toxicity right. It's just accumulating over time. We have these kids who are born with diseases you wouldn't typically see until later in life and I think that's a huge red flag.

Christine H.: I think it was an article that said if you're a woman, actually not just my daughter, but my daughters, granddaughter, is still going to be effected by things that effected my DNA. Because you eggs are basically being influenced with that. It's not just one generation I think it's two or even three generations that are going to be effected by it.

Kendra Perry: It's so true because the eggs, it's like if you have your kid and if that kid is a daughter, it's her DNA passing on to her next child as well. So there is 2 or 3 generations in there that are getting effected by this. It's not something that's just going to go away with one generation. It's going to take a lot of work and education. Not everyone is going to up for it, I don't think.

Brendan V.: At the end of the day, maybe society is more sophisticated and complicated, but it's Darwinism is at full effect all the time. At this point, we're not evolving we're kind of devolution is really occurring. I think everybody has heard the statistic, about, you can measure 200+ chemicals in the placenta of a newborn. I feel like everybody's heard that statistic and it's true. We are born at birth, toxic and it's only getting worse. That's weird too, a lot of these chemicals are damaging our DNA. They form these quinone and these toxic compounds that directly destroy our DNA, which then starts causing all of these mutagenic effects with our DNA and susceptibility to disease. It's nasty. I honestly hate to say it, but the more awoke you get with all this stuff, the more it's like we're all kind of fucked and we need to de-fuck ourselves.

Kendra Perry: I love that!

Christine H.: [inaudible]

Brendan V.: There's no other way to put it. People need to wake up and realize we are on a trajectory of destroying our species, destroying our planet. I was just having this conversation yesterday. In reality, we are all pretty self interested organisms. Like if an organism didn't have the inherent desire, if you want to use the word desire, that instinct to propel us into the future to continue. Nothing would exist. The number one inherent desire of any organism, that we want to continue, we want to evolve, we want to reproduce. The health crisis, some of us are going to do what's needed to stay healthy and survive. Meanwhile the planet, the rock, that we're all just walking on is just being destroyed underneath our feet. It's honestly a pretty bleak outlook but that's where we just gotta keep talking about it. People need to stop looking at their phone and realize what's going on.

Kendra Perry: It is cool to see, I do feel like there is a lot of organizations coming up. I do feel like there are certain things about this that are coming to the mainstream. I see certain mainstream comedies joking about being gluten free, for example. You start to see these things coming to the mainstream and maybe they're making the way into comedy, but it's a thing right? It's a movement. I think you just helped me come up with my new tagline. "Kendra Perry Nutrition, How to De-Fuck yourself."

Brendan V.: Yeah, how to unfuck your life.

Kendra Perry: I love that. Can we talk a little bit about, some of the mindset things you need to work with, when you're working with clients with autoimmune conditions. Some of the emotional stuff that is going on with these types of people.

Brendan V.: That's something I'm honestly kind of trying to navigate a better solution for, with my business motto. I feel like I need to start offering some serious psychological, spiritual based coaching because a lot of times...I look at health like a yin yang, if you got the psychology and physiology, where they are swirling together, they drastically influence one another. The physiology is off it messes up your psychology, your psychology is off, it messed up your physiology. At the same time, if you're trying to fix all of it, it gets so overwhelming. When you're dealing with clients, patients, that are really jacked up, physiologically, but also kind of psychologically you have to pick your battle, create some separation. [inaudible]. You're exactly right the mindset is huge. That's where I think it is the responsibility of the coach, the practitioner, whatever, you got to be trained in habit based coaching and behavioral modification and neurolinguistics programing. You got to be able to navigate the fragility of the ego and navigate the fragility of their psychology. That's some hard shit. Meanwhile you're trying to fix all the complicated metabolic shit. It's damn near impossible sometimes.

Christine H.: I just call it resilience, it's one of those hip words right now. I just say we're going to coach up your resilience. Basically it's jut tearing down their shit.

Kendra Perry: I think people tell themselves a lot of stories. I'm always like what's the story you're telling yourself about your health. I mean I've done it to, because I've had my own health journey. It's just like my energy is never good, I'm just really sick, I'm just never going to get there, it's never going to happen for me. You have to really try and unwind those stories that people are telling themselves. Also try and get people in a place of personal responsibility. I think that's the biggest thing. People need to be responsible for their own health. As coaches we are here to guide people and tell them what to do, but ultimately their health is not my responsibility, it's theirs. I think that's hard shift for some people to make. We definitely in a current medical system, there is no personal responsibility.

Christine H.: It's like here's your pill, we take care of you. Then you have people who are like, please help me, I will pay you a shit load, but I'm not prepared to not eat gluten.

Brendan V.: That's the thing, people need to realize, you manifest your own reality, through the projection of your own beliefs. Then you got to get into your own belief system. What is your belief system? I love that. What is the story that you're telling yourself. There's a crisis of victim mentality in today's society. It's not that everybody wants to be a victim necessarily, but everybody wants affirmation, everybody wants attention. We need that, we are social creatures, so we need a certain amount of societal attention and affirmation, even if it's negative like, I have this disease, I'm a victim, me to, I'm a victim. It's like are you owning your shit and are you doing something. Where as, in the clinical world, I can hold up a piece of paper, a lab test that says this is what's wrong with you physiologically. Where as, psychologically I just need to hold up a mirror and say What do you see. Let's get raw, let's get honest what to you see.

Kendra Perry: I love that you bring up victim mode, because it's such a disease. I see it a lot. Definitely when I'm screening people, when determining whether to work with them or not. If I see they're in victim mode I won't work with them because I can't help them. They have other work to do. I recently just kicked a woman out of my group membership program, because she was just severe victim mode, no responsibility, shutting down everything anyone said. Just totally toxic, like a virus. It doesn't feel good to kick someone out, especially when you know they need help. Sometimes you are not the person to help them, they need to deep emotional healing right?

Brendan V.: That's the thing, those of us in this work are generally impavs and very empathetic, we have big heart for people. We want to help everybody, we want to save everybody. Sometimes Darwinism needs to play out. That sounds pretty brutal. The people that choose to drown in two feet of water, because they refuse to stand up, that's Darwinism. That is going to due off, that's going to fade out and those that actually choose to evolve. I'm a pretty spiritual dude and I love to kind of combine spirituality. It's just like the Frank Stark Reality of Evaluation. We're just a bunch of meat coated skeletons, walking around on a rock, falling through infinite. You gotta own your own shit, You gotta take responsibility for your reality because that's all there is. All there is.

Christine H.: I love it! How did that happen, from going to [inaudible] to falling through holes and stuff.

Kendra Perry: It's so cool though. Own your own shit. The truth is you form your own reality. I see a lot of people who don't realize that. I see those people, who I call them sols, because they just suck at life, and everything just keeps happening to them. When you actually take a deep look, you realize that they are bringing all that drama into their lives. Maybe they thrive on it, maybe it makes them feel important, maybe it gives them something to complain about or something to distract them from something else hat is going on. I feel like when I made that shift, I feel like I used to be a sol back in the day and I read a few books and started to see, I form and create my own reality. I could totally manifest a better life for myself and when I made that shift, my life got intimately better.

Brendan V.: Step 1 is self awareness, become aware yourself. Then you just start observing. It's kind of the scientific method, You watch, you observe, you make inferences, you conduct experiences. That's all it is to be successful in life. You have to study the situation, see what works, see what doesn't work, of course correct. How do I get from point A to point B. You have to start with staring at yourself in a mirror and getting pretty brutally honest. Don't assume anything, don't assume you are right about anything. You have to question everything. We live in a world today, we all have an ego. I think the ego is a very primordial, primal, had wired instinct. The ego is a mechanism of self interested that propels us onwards to propel us to be self interested so that we can survive and evolve. But in today's world abundance and seductive marketing the ego has just been seduced and it takes over. People are asleep at the wheel and the ego is driving. And they don't know that, they don't recognize it.

Kendra Perry: That's awesome! Coming back around to autoimmunity, do you think that it's possible to reverse autoimmunity. Have you seen that happen?

Brendan V.: Absolutely, what I love about working with autoimmunity is there is [inaudible] No functional [inaudible] approach. That's what is kind of beautiful about that, there is no other way, you have to do it the right way. That's what I love. You track those antibodies. When I'm working with an autoimmune client, I know our work is not done until we get the antibodies completely negative and then we have to figure out what level of compliance does it take to sustain that. Anybody with an autoimmune condition, they should be doing the antibody testing at least annually for the rest of their life. Just to make sure, How'd I do this year, I was kind of lazy with my diet and lifestyle and self care this year, Oh crap my antibodies are up. You're always going to be susceptible . You don't cure it, you just put it in remission and you keep it there.

Kendra Perry: I think that's a very good point.

Christine H.: I love this, I'm thinking of what else you could teach our audience, but I think we pretty much covered what autoimmunity is, what Brendan's first steps are, the testing, mindset is a huge one. [inaudible] I think that's huge. Right?

Kendra Perry: Obviously it requires a lot of work, but if people are up for it, I think there's a lot of hope right?

Brendan V.: Absolutely. It's easy to get caught up on the physiology the hard science, but ultimately you can't heal without really addressing your own psychology, your own beliefs, owning your own story, choosing to do something about it. That's something I do see a lot. You work with people who are really physically ill and obviously that has hade a huge impact on their mental health, but sometimes it is almost easier, the body is extremely complex, but believe it or not sometimes, it's easier to fix the body and the mind starts following. Even the most physically ill people, their body is usually more resilient than their minds. I hate to say it, but their mind is extremely fragile, extremely weak. I don't say that to pic on people, because we're all born into this world, a blank slate. Our brain is the soft, wet piece of clay that is going to be malleable and molded by nature, nurture and that forms your neuro networks, your neuroplasticity, your belief system. We are not born, and we don't choose our belief system. Our belief system is ingrained into us, from day one, from parents and society. That's what makes becoming an adult, which I've gone through in the past decade, of High I'm a child and now I'm not, what the fuck is going on. Let me revaluate everything I think I know. Unfortunately I don't think that everybody goes through that. I think some people are consumed with, this is my reality, this is my belief system and they are closed off. They don't realize how much more there is. They don't realize that they've been confused by the smoke. That's where the book "4 Agreements", have you ever read that?

Kendra Perry: I've heard of it. I think I own it. I should look it up.

Brendan V.: Everybody should read that book.

Kendra Perry: That was actually going to be my next question, what are your favorite mindset books. What would be your go to books for practitioners who maybe want to learn a little bit more about autoimmune conditions?

Brendan V.: For autoimmunity? I'm looking at my book collection. The Hashimoto's Protocol from Isabella Wentz. Obviously, New York Times Best Seller. That's a great example right there. She is a Doctor of Pharmacy turns Integrative Functional whatever, but that's a fantastic book. Anybody with a thyroid condition should read that. It's basically lik a blueprint of all the stuff we do professionally. No I don't think anybody should try and navigate their autoimmunity without professional help. But absolutely should be empowered. The other ones would be Dr. Tom O'Brien, is the shit. His "You can fix your Brain" and "Autoimmune Solution". Great books! My stepmom is a great example. She can't just hear it from me, it doesn't work if it's coming from the son, what do I know. But they gave her that book and she's like "Oh my gosh", I need to show my doctor this. I'm like, you can, they're not going to give a fuck, but you can.

Kendra Perry: That's awesome! Brendan, where can people find out more about you? Where can they connect with you?

Brendan V.: I'm all over. I got my Metabolic Solutions, LLC. Instagram page, Holistic salvage Instagram page, Metabolic Solutions Facebook page and then of course my website, Metabolicsolutions.com. Those would be the main places, good starting point. Linkedin, I'm all over the place.

Kendra Perry: Awesome! Thank you for being here with us and having this very interesting conversation that took a few turns I was not expecting.

Brendan V.: I really enjoyed it. I'm happy to be here. I like to have good authentic, real conversations and I really think our society craves that. There is so much fake noise, that just bombards our senses all the time. So people rave that, they crave, like let's get real. I think this was a goo convo. I really enjoyed it and thanks for having me.

Christine H.: Well so did we!

Kendra Perry: Awesome, I'll see you guys again in two weeks for another awesome episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. Thanks Brendan and thank you to my unbelievably sexy cohost.

Christine H.: [inaudible] My internet sucks, I'm going to get a grip on that for next time. But if you learned one thing during this episode that you didn't know, just one thing, then please go to Itunes and leave us a 5 star review. Super, Super Stoked. Go over to our website, you get all the links in there, the show notes and you can also watch our video if you are just listening to us and you want to see how amazing and beautiful we all look, then you can do that too.